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Thursday, April 20, 2006

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released today the full text of its World Economic Outlook (WEO), April 2006 issue (www.imf.org). I immediately checked the database, created my own table and arranged countries based on size of their economies represented by their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). To adjust for cost of living in each country, economists use the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) valuation. I have a ranking of more than 180 countries, will show here only the top 25.

Its interesting to note that out of the 25 largest economies in the world in 2005, 9 are Asians (including Iran); and more interesting is that 3 Asian countries (China, Japan and India) are in the top 4 and have economies much larger than any of the European countries.

I also checked the ranking of countries in 1980, to see how countries fared 25 years ago, when the pace of globalization was slower (next table after the 2005 ranking). Back then, China and India ranked #s 8 and 9.

Over the last 25 years, China's GDP has increased by 21x, Korea's GDP has increased by 10.8x, Taiwan's by 9.4x, Thailand's by 8.6x, India's by 8.4x.

In contrast, over the last 25 years, the US's GDP has increased by 4.5x, Canada's by 4.2x, Mexico's by 3.8x, Brazil's by 3.5x. For the European countries, Spain's by 4.2x, UK's by 3.8x, France's by 3.4x, Germany's by 3.3x, Italy's by 3.1x.

Indeed, faster globalization has benefitted the Asians more than the North and South Americans, and the Europeans. No wonder anti-globalization sentiment is much stronger among Europeans and Americans than Asians.

In the world's largest economies by GDP, PPP valuation, 9 of top 25 are Asians.
Of the world's 25 most populous countries, nearly half or 11 are Asians. The top 2 are occupied of course, by China and India, the only billion-plus population countries.